Simplification of CPF Top-up Schemes

There are cur­rently two chan­nels to top-up your Spe­cial Account (SA) and Retire­ment Account (RA).They are :- a) Vol­un­tary Con­tri­bu­tions (VC) to a member’s Retire­ment Account (RA); and b) Top-ups made under the Ordin­ary Account-to-Spe­cial Account (OA-to-SA) Trans­fer scheme.

The above two will be merged into the exist­ing Min­im­um Sum Top­ping Up (MSTU) Scheme. This sim­pli­fic­a­tion will align the top-up lim­it and terms and con­di­tions so that it is less con­fus­ing to the mem­ber.

The New Aligned Top-Up Lim­its For top-ups into the SA, mem­bers who are less than 55 years old will be able to receive top-ups up to the pre­vail­ing Min­im­um Sum, minus the sum of their SA cash bal­ance and SA sav­ings which they have used for invest­ment.

For top-ups into the RA, mem­bers who are 55 years old or older will receive top-ups up to the pre­vail­ing Min­im­um Sum, minus their RA cash bal­ance. The RA cash bal­ance excludes amounts such as interest earned, gov­ern­ment grants received and amounts that mem­bers have with­drawn.

Tax Relief exten­ded to par­ents-in-law and Grand­par­ents-in-lawAny­one who makes a cash top-up to his own CPF account and/or receives a cash top-up from his employ­er will receive up to $7,000 of tax relief, and up to anoth­er $7,000 for cash top-ups to eli­gible fam­ily mem­bers in a cal­en­dar year. Eli­gible fam­ily mem­bers cur­rently refer to par­ents, grand­par­ents, spouses and sib­lings. This will be exten­ded to par­ents-in-law and grand­par­ents-in-law from 1 Janu­ary 2013. For mem­bers who make top-ups to their spouse or sib­lings, they are eli­gible for the tax relief if their spouse or sib­lings have an annu­al income below $4,000 or are han­di­capped.